Macgasm

Since the first beta release of iOS 5 back a few months ago, Apple has been vigorously releasing updates to the beta. In the past, Apple has been known to release a few updates, but this time developers are currently running the seventh beta of the software — and it’s almost complete.

Apparently the carriers of the iPhone, namely AT&T and Verizon, currently have access to an even newer version of iOS 5. This version has yet to be released to all developers and could well be the final version of iOS 5. Amongst the final bug fixes and the like, there are two big new features seen in this build that are not present in the others.

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For a while, it seemed as if we’d gone back to when the iPhone 4 first came out. The amount of time estimated by Apple for an iPhone to ship jumped to 1-3 days up from the usual 24 hours for a brief time. As usual, the suspicion is that as we get closer to the launch of the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4 stock will begin to fall.

What is interesting about this case in particular is two things:

1. There has been some speculation that Apple might keep the iPhone 4 around to sell at a cheaper price — kind of like the iPhone 3GS now. The dwindling supplies would seem to point away from that idea.
2. The estimated shipping times have since returned to 24 hours.

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Apple has updated its great iPad ad campaign with a new ad called Learn. Following suit with the other iPad ads, this one showcases not a feature of the iPad itself, but rather something that you can do with it.

The ad begins asking if you “are curious about new ideas,” and continues to showcase all sorts of various ways you can learn on the iPad. From the built in dictionary feature that can help you learn just a single word, to solar system apps that allow anyone to study our galaxy. The ad concludes by stating “There’s never been a better time to learn.”

As always, this attitude towards ads, and indeed the products themselves, is what sets not only Apple’s ads apart from their competitors, but — you guessed it — the products themselves.

Source: Apple
Via: MacNN

As has been the topic of many a discussion, the official Steve Jobs biography is due out this November 21st. With the latest developments of Jobs’ resignation, however, the publisher of the book, Simon & Schuster, promised that not only will the details of the resignation be included in the latter chapters of the book, but that the release date will stay the same.

Of course, this makes me wonder if Walter Isaacson, the author of the book, knew anything about the resignation prior to the official public announcement. Apparently Isaacson and Jobs speak on a fairly regular basis, and are collaborating on this final chapter as we speak.

Either way, it’s impressive to me that they were able to hold the release date, and I’m just glad that we will all be able to get our hands on the book when anticipated.

Source: PCMag
Via: TUAW

For quite some time now Apple has had a recycling program in which you send in your old Apple product — be it a Mac, iPhone, or iPod — and they’ll recycle it. But that’s it. You didn’t get anything in return. Except perhaps feeling good that you helped save the world and all.

Now though, and this came as quite the surprise, Apple will actually give you some money in return. The money comes in the form of store credit, but that sure is perfect for most people. This latest development may not be the greatest thing for third party recyclers like Gazelle, but all in all this is a very good thing.

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For the longest time in Mac OS X windows were all resized the same way — via the little handle in the lower right hand corner of every window. In Lion though, this drastically changed. Now a user can resize a window from not only any corner, but even from any side.

Now I say this all as if it’s such a huge new life changing feature. It’s not, of course, but it’s still nice to have. It’s especially useful in instances where you have the width of a window just perfect, but you want to slightly alter the height (think Twitter, etc.). In Lion you can simply drag the bottom of the window down to do this.

What is more interesting than all of this though, and what is truly ‘new’ for an operating system, is that you can actually alter the way in which a window is resized by holding down certain keys on your keyboard while dragging with your mouse to resize a window.

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Whenever Apple releases a new product there is always quite a wait until an ‘average consumer’ can get their hands on their very own said shiny new iDevice. And by ‘average consumer,’ I mean anyone who isn’t willing to sit outside and wait in lines the day of the product’s release. The same was true when the iPad 2 was first announced. Apple can never seem to keep up with the demand, and if there is one thing about the company that irks me, it’s that.

That being said, it was only just reported today (yes, you read that right) that Apple has finally caught up with the demand for their iPad 2 and now promises to ship them within a normal 24 hours. It took them a ludicrous four and a half months, but they did it. Inventory at physical Apple Stores should start to rise as well, and there is the same ‘two per order’ limit as always.

Well, there you go. If you would like an iPad 2, Apple is finally okay with shipping one to you.

Source: 9to5mac
Via: BGR

The inception of the new AirDrop feature in OS X Lion that allows one to easily and quickly share files with another Mac that is simply in the near vicinity caused the great thinkers over at AppleBitch to wonder if, and when, an AirDrop app would make its way to iOS:

Now that Apple has released OS X 10.7 Lion to the public, one of the most important questions for users with multiple Apple devices has to be; will Apple release an AirDrop app for iOS 5? AirDrop itself is an incredibly user friendly and simply way to move files between two compatible Macs running the Lion operating system. Users simply have to drag and drop files from one Mac to another and don’t even have to be operating on the same wireless network. It’s like Bluetooth file sharing but better. Could this be migrated on to iOS 5?

While AirDrop does have its issues, I do agree that having some form of AirDrop on an iOS device would certainly be nice. In terms of it making its way into iOS 5 however — not as likely. But then again, who really knows other than the Apple Giants hard at work in Cupertino?

On the other hand, being able to use AirDrop unrestricted on an iPhone just as you would on a Mac poses a number of questions. For one, would you be able to easily transfer music from one iPhone to another? Better yet, would you be able to transfer music at all? That just doesn’t seem like something Apple would be too keen on. Would you then have to register the devices that you can transfer your files to? I’m just not sure. While the idea to have AirDrop sounds nice conceptually, I am super curious to see just how Apple would implement it.

Finally, if it does work phone to phone at all, you can pretty much kiss Bump goodbye.

While this whole idea of an AirDrop app on iOS makes über sense to me, there is not much more we can speculate about right now other than us all agreeing that the idea certainly has a nice intriguing ring to it.

Source: AppleBitch